WEBVTT - The Future of Addiction 0:00:03.000 --> 0:00:05.880 Welcome to Stuff to Blow Your Mind from how Stuff 0:00:05.920 --> 0:00:13.200 Works dot com. Hey you welcome to Stuff to Blow 0:00:13.240 --> 0:00:15.600 your Mind. My name is Robert lamp and I'm Julie Tuckers. 0:00:15.920 --> 0:00:18.680 We just published on episode the other day on the 0:00:18.720 --> 0:00:22.720 science of addiction, and this is kind of the part two. 0:00:22.840 --> 0:00:24.920 I mean, you can probably listen to this episode without 0:00:24.920 --> 0:00:28.000 having listened to the previous one, but they go well together, 0:00:28.160 --> 0:00:31.560 so we recommend that viewing order let listening order rather. 0:00:32.159 --> 0:00:35.160 This episode is uh going to look at the future 0:00:35.200 --> 0:00:37.600 of addiction. Uh, And we're not talking about just what 0:00:37.680 --> 0:00:40.239 kind of crazy drugs would have in the future. Now, 0:00:40.320 --> 0:00:43.400 we're talking about how can we treat addiction in the future. 0:00:43.520 --> 0:00:46.960 What are some of the cutting edge and emerging techniques 0:00:47.440 --> 0:00:50.520 and technologies that will be at our disposal to deal 0:00:50.920 --> 0:00:53.600 with the disease of addiction. Yeah, and before we look 0:00:53.600 --> 0:00:55.640 at the future stuff, let's just kind of look at 0:00:55.680 --> 0:00:58.160 what's going on in the present. The number one driver 0:00:58.400 --> 0:01:02.920 of aids in the world is used heroin needles, particularly 0:01:02.960 --> 0:01:08.240 in countries where there's no needle exchange programs. So what 0:01:08.480 --> 0:01:11.800 if you could get rid of the root problem, you 0:01:11.840 --> 0:01:16.240 could eradicate heroin addiction or for that matter really any addiction. Yeah, 0:01:16.280 --> 0:01:18.960 and we're not just talking instantly. Minds tend to turn 0:01:19.000 --> 0:01:21.400 to Africa, and certainly that's one of the areas concerned here, 0:01:21.440 --> 0:01:24.160 but other you know, countries that don't have needle exchange 0:01:24.200 --> 0:01:29.440 programs include such large UH population nations as China and Russia. Yeah, 0:01:29.480 --> 0:01:31.559 I think that people don't, you know, at least people 0:01:31.560 --> 0:01:34.360 outside of the United States don't realize what in the 0:01:34.440 --> 0:01:37.880 city is problem. This is half a trillion dollars are 0:01:37.920 --> 0:01:41.440 spent worldwide to treat addiction. So here's just one little 0:01:41.520 --> 0:01:45.320 prism of the addiction problem in the US. And estimated 0:01:45.400 --> 0:01:49.160 one point four million Americans are addicted to cocaine, which 0:01:49.200 --> 0:01:51.400 was the reason for more than four hundred and eighty 0:01:51.400 --> 0:01:54.920 two thousand emergency department visits in two thousand and eight 0:01:54.960 --> 0:01:57.800 and is a leading cause of heart attack and stroke 0:01:58.240 --> 0:02:04.480 among people younger than age five. So the problem here, 0:02:04.600 --> 0:02:08.960 of course is that we have access and if you 0:02:08.960 --> 0:02:11.600 look at you know sort of where drugs are in 0:02:11.760 --> 0:02:15.760 the time continuum with history here, Um, we have more 0:02:15.800 --> 0:02:19.520 access to drugs than ever before, and more types of drugs, 0:02:20.160 --> 0:02:23.880 and what emerges here are some highly highly addictive substances. 0:02:23.919 --> 0:02:28.040 I'm talking about meth which creates one of the biggest 0:02:28.240 --> 0:02:32.040 boost of dopamine in the brain, and prolonged use of 0:02:32.080 --> 0:02:36.560 this can lead to psychotic like symptoms, walking about, strong hallucinations, 0:02:36.600 --> 0:02:40.280 and really violent behavior. And studies of the brain patterns 0:02:40.320 --> 0:02:42.960 of some long term matthews have shown that up to 0:02:43.919 --> 0:02:48.519 their dopamine producing cells have been damaged. So if you 0:02:48.680 --> 0:02:52.280 listened um to the other episode on this then you 0:02:52.360 --> 0:02:56.639 kind of know already that, uh, this is a situation 0:02:56.720 --> 0:02:59.240 where the person is just getting deeper and deeper into 0:02:59.280 --> 0:03:03.440 the whole because it's not about free will anymore, because 0:03:03.480 --> 0:03:05.959 the parts of your brain, the executive function have been 0:03:06.040 --> 0:03:08.880 so eroded by drugs that even if you wanted to stop, 0:03:08.919 --> 0:03:11.760 you might not be able to. Yeah, and and and 0:03:11.840 --> 0:03:14.239 that's certainly the the anti drug messaging that I think 0:03:14.240 --> 0:03:18.000 needs to be focused on more often with myth amphetamy, 0:03:18.080 --> 0:03:23.000 because I was reading and according to neuro psychopharmacologist Carl Hart, 0:03:23.360 --> 0:03:26.000 there's actually no empirical evidence to support the claim that 0:03:26.040 --> 0:03:30.760 meth amphetamy causes one to become physically unattractive, which hopefully 0:03:30.840 --> 0:03:33.120 they've they're calming down on that, but for the longest, 0:03:33.200 --> 0:03:36.600 like like meth mouth you know, in the affirmation of 0:03:36.640 --> 0:03:39.080 the meth addict and just some sort of subhuman hyena 0:03:39.240 --> 0:03:42.480 person has been kind of the focus. When certainly that's 0:03:42.480 --> 0:03:46.360 flashy that works on a billboard a little easier, but 0:03:46.640 --> 0:03:49.480 the the reality of what's actually changing with the brain 0:03:49.800 --> 0:03:52.040 that is far scarier than some sort of jackal and 0:03:52.120 --> 0:03:54.360 hide show. I agree. I have seen the ads before 0:03:54.400 --> 0:03:56.560 where there's like this beautiful woman and then she takes 0:03:56.560 --> 0:03:59.080 out her false teeth and she takes off her makeup 0:03:59.120 --> 0:04:01.800 and all of a sudden you ease her her methatic 0:04:01.920 --> 0:04:05.640 riddled face, and they are appealing to vanity. But vanity 0:04:05.680 --> 0:04:10.560 doesn't matter when addiction is highly routinized in your brain, Um, 0:04:10.680 --> 0:04:13.240 nobody cares anymore what they look like. So if you 0:04:13.280 --> 0:04:16.040 were to instead crack open the brain and show people 0:04:16.279 --> 0:04:20.360 this is how your brain is actually like completely mutating here, 0:04:20.480 --> 0:04:23.799 that might be a far more compelling story to people. 0:04:24.320 --> 0:04:26.159 The next one is another biggie, and that is of 0:04:26.160 --> 0:04:29.479 course heroin UH derived from opium, And of course this 0:04:29.520 --> 0:04:32.800 one has been wreaking havoc for for years and years. Yeah, 0:04:32.839 --> 0:04:36.320 thirty of first time users will become addicted. In two 0:04:36.360 --> 0:04:39.880 thousand and five, two point four of the American population 0:04:39.920 --> 0:04:42.800 said they had tried heroin at least once. The source 0:04:42.800 --> 0:04:47.120 of that Department of Health, and withdrawal symptoms are really acute. 0:04:47.240 --> 0:04:50.680 They arrived just a few hours after a dose swears off, 0:04:50.760 --> 0:04:53.200 and because of this, users have a really high chance 0:04:53.240 --> 0:04:56.680 for relapse. Because we talked about this in the last episode. UM, 0:04:56.720 --> 0:04:59.640 at some point the addiction becomes less about chasing the 0:04:59.720 --> 0:05:02.680 high and more about chasing some sort of equilibrium and 0:05:02.680 --> 0:05:05.560 feeling normal again, which can only happen if you get 0:05:05.600 --> 0:05:07.680 more of the substance in your body. All right, and 0:05:07.720 --> 0:05:09.880 the next big one to hit might come as surprise 0:05:09.920 --> 0:05:15.039 because it's not crack cocaine. It is nicotine. Nicotine is 0:05:15.080 --> 0:05:20.719 a very addictive substance. But we often overlook this why UM, 0:05:20.760 --> 0:05:24.440 I think it's because it's legalized, right, something like of 0:05:24.520 --> 0:05:28.680 people who ever try cigarettes will become nicotine addicts. At 0:05:28.720 --> 0:05:31.200 some point, you can buy it legally at the store, 0:05:31.320 --> 0:05:33.320 at the gas station. Used to you could get out 0:05:33.320 --> 0:05:36.640 of a machine. UM. Someone's liable to and it's given 0:05:36.680 --> 0:05:42.320 its legality and an overall still social acceptance, UM, people 0:05:42.320 --> 0:05:43.920 are liable to give it to you without it being 0:05:43.920 --> 0:05:46.520 that big of a deal as well so, and it 0:05:46.520 --> 0:05:49.320 still looks cool on TV, right, Yeah, and it's not 0:05:49.400 --> 0:05:51.320 as big of a risk. And this is something that 0:05:51.400 --> 0:05:55.240 David Lyndon, a professor of neuroscience at Johns Hopkins University, 0:05:55.279 --> 0:05:57.880 pointed out. He said, you know, hey, if you have 0:05:58.400 --> 0:06:00.160 a bag of heroin, you're not going to do a 0:06:00.200 --> 0:06:02.560 whole bag of heroin. You know you're gonna overdose. But 0:06:02.680 --> 0:06:05.840 if you have a pack of cigarettes and you have 0:06:06.120 --> 0:06:08.599 ten or twenty of those cigarettes throughout the day, you 0:06:08.640 --> 0:06:11.880 get that little ding of dopamine each time. And he 0:06:12.000 --> 0:06:13.880 kind of yeah, he kind of like lined it to 0:06:13.960 --> 0:06:15.840 pa off s dog, right, so he said that we're 0:06:15.839 --> 0:06:18.360 really good at training or inner dog and sort of 0:06:18.360 --> 0:06:20.360 being like, oh, I need a little pick up right now. 0:06:20.400 --> 0:06:25.719 And you get that little dopamine um pleasure feeling from it, 0:06:25.760 --> 0:06:30.880 But you're not going to necessarily um render yourself unconscious 0:06:30.960 --> 0:06:33.240 or unable to work or any of those things. But 0:06:33.400 --> 0:06:36.800 still it is an addiction, and it is an addictive behavior. Yeah, 0:06:36.800 --> 0:06:38.719 you hear about people being one or two back a 0:06:38.800 --> 0:06:43.400 day smoker. Whereas in the panel they pointed out that 0:06:43.400 --> 0:06:47.200 that even a heavy heroin user is probably not going 0:06:47.240 --> 0:06:49.520 to use more than three times a day. And so 0:06:49.839 --> 0:06:51.400 to go back to what one of the topics we 0:06:51.440 --> 0:06:54.240 discussed in the previous episode chunking that idea that the 0:06:54.240 --> 0:06:56.920 brain is forming habits get x than Y and Z 0:06:57.560 --> 0:06:59.400 and uh and then forming a shortcut kind of a 0:06:59.400 --> 0:07:02.080 hot key for the brain for behavior encoding the memory 0:07:02.120 --> 0:07:05.000 of usage. Uh, you're you're going to have what you know, 0:07:05.240 --> 0:07:09.440 twenty times uh or more per day that you're enforcing 0:07:09.600 --> 0:07:12.760 that shortcut as opposed to a maximum three times per 0:07:12.840 --> 0:07:15.640 day with the hairin user. Yeah. And Charles Higg, the 0:07:15.680 --> 0:07:20.160 author of UM, the Habit Loop, I think I totally 0:07:20.200 --> 0:07:23.840 slaughtered that. But um, he's talked about this and written 0:07:23.880 --> 0:07:26.720 about this at length, and he says his claim is 0:07:26.800 --> 0:07:30.400 that percent of our decisions every day that's just habit. 0:07:30.560 --> 0:07:33.120 We think we're making these decisions, but really we're just 0:07:33.200 --> 0:07:37.960 responding to environmental cues in these well worn neural pathways 0:07:37.960 --> 0:07:40.720 in our brains. Yeah, because we've discussed before, habits take 0:07:40.800 --> 0:07:43.520 up energy, they take a cognitive power, and we don't 0:07:43.520 --> 0:07:46.840 have a limitless amount of that. So we handed over 0:07:46.840 --> 0:07:49.240 to to routine. We handed over to habit so that 0:07:49.320 --> 0:07:52.560 we'll have some juice to handle the actual decisions that 0:07:52.600 --> 0:07:55.400 are coming at us, and of course that the problem 0:07:55.400 --> 0:07:57.960 with this is that again, your brain, your brain secretry, 0:07:58.000 --> 0:08:01.040 isn't making any sort of like, hey, this could be 0:08:01.080 --> 0:08:04.360 a terrible thing. Don't do this, um, and your prefrontal cortex, 0:08:04.400 --> 0:08:06.800 your executive functions in your brain are already sort of 0:08:07.360 --> 0:08:11.680 um lessened by the addictive behavior. All right. The next 0:08:11.720 --> 0:08:14.560 thing we have here is prescription medication, one of the 0:08:14.680 --> 0:08:19.160 rapidly growing substances of abuse in the US. Between nineteen 0:08:19.240 --> 0:08:25.679 eighty and nine, abuse of prescription drugs increased four and 0:08:25.920 --> 0:08:28.880 it has about the same amount of usage in America 0:08:29.000 --> 0:08:32.720 as cocaine. According to the National Institute on Drug Abuse, 0:08:33.760 --> 0:08:37.240 drug overdose was the leading cause of injury death in 0:08:37.280 --> 0:08:40.679 two thousand and ten, and among people twenty five to 0:08:40.800 --> 0:08:43.480 sixty four years old, drug overdose caused more death than 0:08:43.559 --> 0:08:50.560 motor vehicle traffic crashes. So the National Institute on Drug 0:08:50.600 --> 0:08:53.880 Abuse goes on to say, by the way, two intend 0:08:54.480 --> 0:08:57.840 seventy eight percent of the drug overdose deaths in the 0:08:57.960 --> 0:09:02.120 US were unintentional, seventy eight percent. And I think that 0:09:02.200 --> 0:09:05.400 this is painting a story here about how prescription drugs 0:09:06.360 --> 0:09:10.280 UH have become so accessible in people are mixing them 0:09:10.280 --> 0:09:14.440 with other drugs or mixing them with alcohol to their detriment. Yeah, 0:09:14.520 --> 0:09:17.320 I mean, it's it's important to to to to to 0:09:17.320 --> 0:09:21.760 to point out that prescription drugs just because it's prescribed 0:09:22.160 --> 0:09:25.959 does not mean it is necessarily a safe substance of 0:09:25.960 --> 0:09:27.480 Any of these are very dangerou socis. I mean, any 0:09:27.480 --> 0:09:30.800 of these are emphatamines. Uh, and they're not that different 0:09:30.880 --> 0:09:34.960 from the illegal variant, and certainly methemphatamine itself is memory 0:09:34.960 --> 0:09:37.760 serves as schedule to narcotic anyway, which means that it 0:09:38.160 --> 0:09:42.320 becausivably has a medical purpose. Uh. And it makes sense 0:09:42.360 --> 0:09:44.360 to like which which car is going to be faster? 0:09:44.440 --> 0:09:47.480 The one made in a garage or the one made 0:09:47.679 --> 0:09:51.080 uh at at a factory? Right? And what do we 0:09:51.120 --> 0:09:53.640 have with with drugs? Your street drug is often made 0:09:53.679 --> 0:09:57.720 in a garage, whereas your your pharmaceutical product is made 0:09:57.720 --> 0:10:00.640 by a billion upon billion dollars in this tree. So 0:10:00.760 --> 0:10:05.880 it's it's kind of like a supercharged vehicle. Yeah. And um, 0:10:06.480 --> 0:10:08.880 I'm sure that people are aware that there are ways 0:10:08.920 --> 0:10:11.040 that people get their hands on drugs that they shouldn't have. 0:10:11.120 --> 0:10:13.920 There are legal drugs prescribed, and I won't go into that. 0:10:13.960 --> 0:10:15.840 I will say that If you are interested in learning 0:10:15.880 --> 0:10:20.160 more about this prescription drugs, check out the documentary American 0:10:20.200 --> 0:10:23.640 Addict that goes into detail. It's pretty depressing, um, but 0:10:23.720 --> 0:10:26.720 it's also very eye opening about this topic. All Right, 0:10:26.960 --> 0:10:28.520 we're gonna take a quick break and we get back. 0:10:28.600 --> 0:10:38.800 We're going to talk about the treatment of addiction. All Right, 0:10:38.840 --> 0:10:42.800 we're back. So we've we've discussed addiction here. Let's talk 0:10:42.840 --> 0:10:46.280 about the ways that we treat addiction. We have several 0:10:46.280 --> 0:10:50.400 different approaches that are currently in play, and we're looking 0:10:50.440 --> 0:10:54.000 at some some new methods of tackling in the future. Yeah, 0:10:54.080 --> 0:10:55.880 and before we go into that, we should say, hey, 0:10:55.960 --> 0:10:59.640 by the way, rate of relapse is really high for addicts. 0:10:59.679 --> 0:11:02.600 I think this is something most people know. According to 0:11:02.720 --> 0:11:05.640 the National Institute on Drug Abuse, relapse rates for drug 0:11:05.640 --> 0:11:11.160 addicted patients about fort's similar to relapse and those suffering 0:11:11.200 --> 0:11:15.280 from diabetes, hypertension, and asthma and drug addiction should be 0:11:15.320 --> 0:11:18.880 treated like any other chronic illness, with relapse serving as 0:11:18.920 --> 0:11:22.240 a trigger for renewed intervention. So keep this in mind. Um. 0:11:22.440 --> 0:11:24.760 And we talked about this this idea of memory and 0:11:24.920 --> 0:11:29.160 cooding behavior and there are being triggers for that. So 0:11:29.520 --> 0:11:33.960 imagine that you have just completed a program, say from 0:11:34.040 --> 0:11:38.320 heroin abuse, and you get out and um, I think 0:11:38.360 --> 0:11:41.480 I called them before, these neural ghosts, these neural pathways 0:11:41.480 --> 0:11:45.360 in your brain, the sort of cellular scarring that's still there. 0:11:45.520 --> 0:11:49.640 It's very easy to tap into that and have that 0:11:49.720 --> 0:11:52.840 behavior express itself again. A great example of this is 0:11:53.200 --> 0:11:55.600 Philip Seymour Hoffman, which is brought up at the World 0:11:55.600 --> 0:11:59.520 Science Festival for the panel of the Craving Brain. They said, 0:11:59.520 --> 0:12:01.680 look at this guy. He was something like ten years 0:12:02.120 --> 0:12:06.400 sober from heroin addiction, went to a rat party one night, 0:12:06.480 --> 0:12:09.200 had a beer, and then something like I don't know 0:12:09.320 --> 0:12:13.320 was it weeks or months later, had died from heroin overdose. Yeah. 0:12:13.400 --> 0:12:15.880 I just started him down the path, opened up those 0:12:15.880 --> 0:12:18.800 pathways again in the brain, those those pathways of habit 0:12:18.840 --> 0:12:22.000 and behavior in addiction, and uh, and then they where 0:12:22.000 --> 0:12:24.880 he ended up. Yeah, So you know you're not treating 0:12:24.960 --> 0:12:28.679 something that's easily dealt with here, right, Just I keep 0:12:28.679 --> 0:12:30.760 coming back to the idea of a cat's cradle, right, 0:12:30.800 --> 0:12:33.560 you know, where you take the shoelace tied together and 0:12:33.600 --> 0:12:35.920 you you string it between your fingers and it's all 0:12:35.920 --> 0:12:39.199 the different fingers holding the string out to form this pattern, 0:12:39.600 --> 0:12:41.480 and you can't you know, put a point at one 0:12:41.520 --> 0:12:44.199 particular finger and say that is the cause of the pattern, 0:12:44.280 --> 0:12:46.840 that is the cause of the the overall design here. 0:12:47.240 --> 0:12:50.120 And just as there's no over that one finger you 0:12:50.120 --> 0:12:52.440 can pin the whole design on, there's no one finger 0:12:52.480 --> 0:12:55.560 you can remove, there's no one treatment plan. It's going 0:12:55.600 --> 0:12:59.480 to be a magic bullet against the problem of addiction. Yeah, 0:12:59.520 --> 0:13:03.560 because in one sense, um, it doesn't really matter anymore 0:13:03.720 --> 0:13:06.880 if you have genetic dispositions to addiction, if you're in 0:13:06.920 --> 0:13:09.520 the middle of an addiction, because at that point you've 0:13:09.559 --> 0:13:13.840 got habit taken over, you've got the transfer station, there 0:13:13.840 --> 0:13:16.640 are significant changes to your brain, and now you've got 0:13:16.960 --> 0:13:20.520 you know, memory all wrapped up in it. So um, 0:13:20.600 --> 0:13:22.400 so yeah, it is a bit of a cat's cradle, 0:13:23.120 --> 0:13:27.280 But the treatments can't really treat a cat's cradle. You 0:13:27.320 --> 0:13:30.120 can pretty much go after individual fingers. Yeah. Yeah, there's 0:13:30.120 --> 0:13:33.320 no unified treatments. So the most widespread medication right now, 0:13:33.559 --> 0:13:37.320 um is in a antidepressants, because this would address the 0:13:37.320 --> 0:13:41.439 feelings of despair or you know, any sort of pre 0:13:41.520 --> 0:13:44.319 existing condition like depression that may have led to the 0:13:44.360 --> 0:13:47.760 addiction in the first place. So the problem with that 0:13:47.840 --> 0:13:49.480 though is that you would have to really pair that 0:13:49.559 --> 0:13:52.560 with behavioral therapy, because it's not just enough to say, 0:13:52.640 --> 0:13:56.000 here's an antidepressant, and we have another a number of 0:13:56.000 --> 0:13:59.520 other medications that sort of target individual parts of the 0:13:59.600 --> 0:14:03.959 chemical cocktail involved in addiction. UM. We have, for instance, 0:14:04.400 --> 0:14:07.280 one of them of famous being a methodone which suppresses 0:14:07.320 --> 0:14:11.400 withdrawal symptoms and relieves cravings with the people are recovering 0:14:11.440 --> 0:14:15.240 from from heroin, uh, you know, morphine addiction. UM. You 0:14:15.280 --> 0:14:17.560 have other substances such as now trek zone, which works 0:14:17.600 --> 0:14:20.520 by blocking the effects of heroin and other opiates at 0:14:20.520 --> 0:14:23.320 the receptor sites. UM. You have, of course, so when 0:14:23.320 --> 0:14:26.640 you're dealing with nicotine nicotine, you have nicotine replacement therapy, 0:14:26.760 --> 0:14:29.600 where essentially you're still getting the nicotine, just not through 0:14:30.000 --> 0:14:33.760 the cigarette, and that's used to help with the with 0:14:33.840 --> 0:14:37.960 the with with the with cravings and whatnot. With alcohol, 0:14:38.080 --> 0:14:41.800 you have now trek zone, which blocks opiate receptors that 0:14:41.800 --> 0:14:44.400 are involved in the reroarting effects of drinking and in 0:14:44.480 --> 0:14:48.480 the craving of alcohol. UM. So you see all these 0:14:48.480 --> 0:14:50.920 types of medication there Again, they're going after sort of 0:14:50.960 --> 0:14:54.560 a particular point in the chain chain of effect. And uh, 0:14:54.760 --> 0:14:57.600 and but they can't they can't deal with environment. They 0:14:57.640 --> 0:15:00.480 can only deal with with one point in in the 0:15:00.840 --> 0:15:03.280 the chemical reaction, be it in how the brain is 0:15:03.320 --> 0:15:07.160 receiving or how the brain is dealing with withdrawal from 0:15:07.160 --> 0:15:09.720 the substance. And of course that has to have to 0:15:09.760 --> 0:15:13.840 have a behavioral counterpoint counterpoint part in order to succeed. Yeah, 0:15:13.880 --> 0:15:17.360 and in the case of methadone, that itself is highly addictive, 0:15:17.640 --> 0:15:19.640 and it's been to argue that you're just delaying the 0:15:19.680 --> 0:15:22.800 process of rehabilitation. Really you're just moving the goalpost out. 0:15:23.160 --> 0:15:26.680 So what do we have on the horizon in the future, 0:15:26.720 --> 0:15:30.640 And you've got some really interesting things going on. UM 0:15:30.880 --> 0:15:36.720 one is called optogenetics, and are excuse me optogenics And 0:15:37.120 --> 0:15:41.440 this is basically kind of like UM a light sensitive 0:15:41.480 --> 0:15:44.960 molecule that's beamed into the brain so far of rats, 0:15:45.760 --> 0:15:50.640 so rats that are learning certain habits. The researchers can 0:15:50.840 --> 0:15:55.880 use this optogenetics treatment to basically turn on or off 0:15:56.120 --> 0:16:00.400 neurons in the rats brains and block the behavior and 0:16:00.520 --> 0:16:03.640 block the the ability of that rat to sort of 0:16:03.680 --> 0:16:06.400 remember like Hey, I want to go and do this um. 0:16:06.440 --> 0:16:09.840 And what's interesting about this is that the rats change 0:16:09.880 --> 0:16:13.120 their behavior in response to different rewards even when the 0:16:13.240 --> 0:16:17.040 light wasn't present. So after they got the initial zap 0:16:17.080 --> 0:16:20.600 with the light, they still didn't return to the bad 0:16:20.680 --> 0:16:24.280 behavior even when a significant amount of time had passed. 0:16:24.760 --> 0:16:27.240 So obviously this is happening in rats right now, not 0:16:27.280 --> 0:16:30.760 in humans. Um. But it plays into this other idea, 0:16:30.800 --> 0:16:35.000 which is electromagnetic magnetic stimulation. Yeah, this is the form 0:16:35.120 --> 0:16:37.600 that this would likely take in the treatment of of 0:16:37.600 --> 0:16:39.880 of human addicts, and certainly this is where the research 0:16:39.960 --> 0:16:42.640 is headed. Um. And and in this we would use 0:16:42.680 --> 0:16:47.800 electromagnetic stimulation outside of the scalp, no surgery required, uh, 0:16:48.600 --> 0:16:52.480 using transcranial magnetic stimulation on these particular parts of the 0:16:52.520 --> 0:16:56.120 brain again to almost uh not to simplify it and 0:16:56.120 --> 0:16:58.320 say it's just like turning a switch on and off 0:16:58.360 --> 0:17:01.880 in terms of addiction, but uh, but but turning off 0:17:02.360 --> 0:17:06.760 that that that that craving, right, Yeah, and increasing the 0:17:06.800 --> 0:17:09.160 neural activity in the parts of the brain that deal 0:17:09.240 --> 0:17:13.080 with executive functions like willpower. Right. So that's what we've 0:17:13.080 --> 0:17:15.359 talked about that that's such a big part of this. 0:17:16.040 --> 0:17:19.160 So then you have you know, willpower being ramped up, 0:17:19.680 --> 0:17:24.359 and you have the addiction behavior being ramped down. What 0:17:24.480 --> 0:17:27.720 you still have to deal with is memory in those triggers. 0:17:28.160 --> 0:17:30.879 And David Lyndon, the neuroscientists and author of The Compass 0:17:30.920 --> 0:17:33.560 of Pleasure, says addiction is a form of learning. When we, 0:17:33.800 --> 0:17:36.520 for example, puff on a cigarette or inject heroin in 0:17:36.520 --> 0:17:39.159 our arm, we are developing associations between the act of 0:17:39.200 --> 0:17:42.480 puffing or the act of injecting all the other sensory 0:17:42.520 --> 0:17:45.320 information that's around the sites and the smells, the people 0:17:45.320 --> 0:17:47.320 were with, the music, we're hearing, the room. We're in 0:17:47.359 --> 0:17:50.560 a situation that surrounds us and the pleasure that is 0:17:50.600 --> 0:17:53.399 produced as the result of puffing on that cigarette or 0:17:53.400 --> 0:17:56.920 injecting that heroin. Well, I hate to invoke the title 0:17:56.920 --> 0:17:59.760 of the movie anymore since it's invoked again in every 0:18:00.119 --> 0:18:03.560 every news article on science that deals with erasing a memory. 0:18:03.560 --> 0:18:05.879 But you kind of have to go eternal sunshine of 0:18:05.880 --> 0:18:09.240 his follows's mind on that particular drug memory because, as 0:18:09.280 --> 0:18:12.159 we discussed in previous episode, uh, the drug memory is 0:18:12.800 --> 0:18:16.040 has has is really firmly encoded. It's not just the 0:18:16.080 --> 0:18:18.480 memory of taking the drug, is the memory of the environment, 0:18:18.720 --> 0:18:21.639 the situation of the drug. All these things tied up 0:18:21.640 --> 0:18:23.879 into it. So yeah, what if you could go after 0:18:23.960 --> 0:18:26.639 that memory, If you could blast that memory sort of 0:18:26.680 --> 0:18:31.720 photon torpedo it, then you could conceivably have a leg 0:18:31.800 --> 0:18:35.120 up on beating the addiction, or you could you could 0:18:35.119 --> 0:18:37.440 just like hose it down with a chemical, which is 0:18:37.520 --> 0:18:41.119 essentially what researchers at the Script's Research Institute have done. 0:18:41.520 --> 0:18:44.439 This is from a Fall two thousand and thirteen study 0:18:44.480 --> 0:18:49.720 published online in Biological Psychiatry. For six days, they had 0:18:49.800 --> 0:18:53.560 rats alternate between one of two rooms, and on the 0:18:53.600 --> 0:18:56.080 odd days, they were put in a chamber let's call 0:18:56.160 --> 0:18:59.760 it Chamber A and given meth. On even days they 0:18:59.760 --> 0:19:03.720 were put in chamber B and given a sailine placebo. 0:19:03.960 --> 0:19:06.920 So a couple of days later, half of these rodents 0:19:07.000 --> 0:19:09.600 were given a choice between those two rooms, and the 0:19:09.640 --> 0:19:12.760 room associated with that meth, of course, was preferred by 0:19:12.840 --> 0:19:15.720 those rats who were injected with myth. But the other 0:19:15.800 --> 0:19:18.760 half of the rodents were then injected with something called 0:19:19.040 --> 0:19:22.240 La trunculin A or lat A, And this is a 0:19:22.320 --> 0:19:25.520 chemical that interferes with actin, and that's a protein known 0:19:25.560 --> 0:19:30.160 to be involved in memory formation. So when they were 0:19:30.160 --> 0:19:33.960 injected with lacta excuse me, latte, the animals showed no 0:19:34.040 --> 0:19:37.840 preference between rooms even up to a day later. Again, 0:19:37.920 --> 0:19:41.320 this is all highly experimental, but it's it's giving us 0:19:41.359 --> 0:19:44.480 an idea that there are certain interventions that can happen 0:19:45.040 --> 0:19:48.359 to address all the different facets of addiction. And the 0:19:48.440 --> 0:19:51.280 researchers do point out that you don't have to worry 0:19:51.280 --> 0:19:55.960 about about this particular method being used to just erase memories. 0:19:56.000 --> 0:19:58.919 Willy nilly. They say that you actually couldn't take their 0:19:58.960 --> 0:20:01.520 discovery and array. It's your run of the mill memory 0:20:01.560 --> 0:20:03.840 inside of the brain. Uh. They said, you can only 0:20:03.960 --> 0:20:07.240 use this to get rid of the strong drug associated memories. 0:20:07.440 --> 0:20:09.520 And of course there's gonna be many more studies and 0:20:09.840 --> 0:20:11.919 they will have to be human trials in order for 0:20:11.960 --> 0:20:15.119 this too for the FDA to approve of it um. 0:20:15.320 --> 0:20:18.480 But that gets us into this other territory in which 0:20:18.720 --> 0:20:23.119 the f d A has approved one type of vaccine 0:20:23.240 --> 0:20:26.360 but not another. And when I'm talking about our vaccines 0:20:26.600 --> 0:20:29.800 developed by Kim d Janda, he was on that World 0:20:29.840 --> 0:20:33.800 Science Festival panel of the Craving Brain to block the 0:20:33.880 --> 0:20:37.520 effects of heroin and users, but also block the effects 0:20:37.600 --> 0:20:41.600 of nicotine and users. So guess which one is being funded. Oh, well, 0:20:41.600 --> 0:20:44.120 obviously they're going to fund the nicotine one, because that's 0:20:44.160 --> 0:20:47.360 your that's your kind of your your white collar drug. Right, 0:20:47.400 --> 0:20:50.720 everyone is dealing with nicotine. But heroin, Oh, that's that's 0:20:50.720 --> 0:20:53.240 a dirty that's a dirty drug. That's the that's the 0:20:53.400 --> 0:20:56.199 at the bottom of the circus tent, right, that's the 0:20:56.359 --> 0:20:58.720 that's down there with the safety nature. Yeah, even though 0:20:59.000 --> 0:21:02.720 an estimated twelve million to four million people used heroin 0:21:02.880 --> 0:21:05.760 as of two thousand and nine, accorded to according to 0:21:05.800 --> 0:21:09.120 the United Nations Office on Tricks and Crime, and Americans 0:21:09.240 --> 0:21:12.879 uh something like two in two thousand eleven. So obviously 0:21:12.920 --> 0:21:14.639 it's a pervasive problem when we spend a lot of 0:21:14.680 --> 0:21:18.440 money on that. But the vaccine itself stimulates the immune 0:21:18.440 --> 0:21:21.080 system to recognize the substance, and it has to be 0:21:21.119 --> 0:21:25.240 given over a period of weeks, which eventually renders the 0:21:25.280 --> 0:21:27.639 person immune to the drug. Because how do our immune 0:21:27.640 --> 0:21:30.640 systems try work? Right? Our immune systems evolved to deal 0:21:30.720 --> 0:21:34.520 with foreign outside invaders, So our immune system doesn't doesn't 0:21:34.560 --> 0:21:38.520 look at incoming cocaine or heroine or nicotine or alcohol 0:21:38.600 --> 0:21:40.800 and say say, oh that's bad. Let's go after that, 0:21:40.880 --> 0:21:45.360 they say, sorry, that's not on our list of suspects. 0:21:45.680 --> 0:21:47.520 We're not gonna go. We're not gonna go arrest the 0:21:47.720 --> 0:21:50.480 right you know. So the idea who are this vaccine is? 0:21:50.520 --> 0:21:54.080 It is it puts those offenders on the on the 0:21:54.119 --> 0:21:58.160 suspect list for our immune system and keeps them from 0:21:58.600 --> 0:22:00.760 crossing a very important border, at least in the case 0:22:00.760 --> 0:22:04.120 of the heroine. Yeah, the blood brain barrier, because that's 0:22:04.200 --> 0:22:07.680 key here. That will actually block any psychoactive effects. So 0:22:07.760 --> 0:22:09.840 in other words, you're not going to get high. Yeah. 0:22:09.880 --> 0:22:11.879 And what they found in the rats, or what Genda 0:22:11.920 --> 0:22:14.240 said he found is that they would give the rats 0:22:14.520 --> 0:22:20.439 like uh doses, overdosed quantity, right, Yeah, and the rats 0:22:20.520 --> 0:22:24.400 would survive when they were vaccinated. So of course it's 0:22:24.480 --> 0:22:27.320 not something you would want to try and human trials, 0:22:27.320 --> 0:22:29.920 but um, but it does lead us to this idea 0:22:30.080 --> 0:22:34.040 that once you take the psychoactive part out, the actual 0:22:34.600 --> 0:22:37.880 um blood brain barrier part where it doesn't get into 0:22:37.920 --> 0:22:39.719 your brain and then affect the rest of the system, 0:22:39.840 --> 0:22:42.880